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On a recent episode of Southern at Heart Chef Damaris was making her grandma’s potato rolls which made me wonder if it could be done with sweet potatoes. Sure enough, a Google search lead to several recipes so I picked 3 that looked good and altered/combined them into one I wanted to try. I started with baking a large sweet potato in the PG1000 from Cookshack until it was tender;

I heated the milk and added the yeast to it and let it set for about 5 minutes, then blended everything but the flour in the stand mixer. I used shortening instead of the butter that the other recipes called for in an attempt to keep the rolls light and fluffy. I added the flour 1 cup at a time just until it was mixed, making a very sticky dough. The dough was covered with a clean towel and allowed to rise for almost 3 hours

While the dough was rising I started on supper. Kristi had been wanting a fire pit so that’s what she got for our anniversary. When she got home that evening she had to cook supper on it, but that was just roasting some wieners and for dessert we had roasted marshmallows.

I bought the fire pit with a cooking grate and used that to make some turkey steaks for supper.

After the dough was allowed to rise I covered it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until morning since I wasn’t going to bake it right away. Sunday morning I got the dough out, floured my work surface and the dough and pressed it into a large disk.

I then divided it in half and rolled the 2 halves, then divided each one into 12 sections,

then rolled them into balls, and placed them into a greased baking pan and let them rise for another hour.

While they were rising I made some Scotch Eggs using my home made sausage and cooked them in the PG1000.

By the time they were done it was time to put the rolls in and let them bake at 400° for 20 minutes. As soon as they came out I brushed the tops with some melted butter.

And this was our breakfast:

As you can see, the rolls came out light and airy. They are good warm or cold and have a mild flavor that doesn’t conflict with any jams or jellies that you might want to put on them. You could also make these with regular potatoes. I wonder if it would work with left over mashed potatoes? I guess that will be something to try on another day…….

Naughty Nurses BBQ Sweet Potato Rolls

Ingredients:

1 cup of milk

2 tablespoons Brown Sugar lightly packed

1/4 shortening

1 packet quick acting yeast

1 1/2 teaspoon table salt

1 large egg

1 cup sweet potato mashed

3 cups all purpose flour

Instructions:

Warm milk to 90°, if you go much over that allow it to cool before adding yeast. Let set for 5 to 10 minutes.

Combine potato, shortening, sugar and salt. Add milk and yeast mixture when it is ready.

Add flour 1 cup at a time and mix just until no dry flour is visible. Do not over mix! You will have a very sticky dough at this point.

Cover with plastic wrap or a clean towel and allow to rise at least 2 hours, and as much as 5 hours.

The dough is ready at this point, but it will be easier to work if it refrigerated for 2 hours and can be refrigerated overnight if desired.

Sprinkle your work surface with flour and turn dough out on top of it, then sprinkle a little more flour on top. Press dough into a large disk about 1/2 inch thick.

Divide dough in half and make 2 rolls, then divide each roll into 12 balls.

Place balls in a well greased baking dish, cover and allow to rise for another hour. The number of balls in a pan can vary, 12 in a 9×13 pan will allow the edges to just touch. Feel free to experiment!

Bake at 400° for 20 minutes until done and tops are golden brown. Immediately brush tops with melted butter.

If you have any leftovers, they will keep several days in an airtight container.

This past weekend we were in Parsons Kansas for the Balloons, Bikes & Barbecue contest. This has become one of our favorite events of the year. As the name implies, the weekend includes a balloon glow, blues music and of course, a barbecue contest.

Unfortunately we didn’t make it out to where they do the balloon glow on Friday evening this year but we did hear it was quite the sight. You can see some of the pictures here.

We had the usual taco bar dinner Friday night and we got the news we had been expecting; several teams had cancelled and we would need to split, so Naughty Nurses Second Shift would make their first appearance of the year. Since we were pretty much expecting this to happen we had enough equipment and meat for 2 teams. It really messes with our timing having to cook as 2 teams instead of together, but we pulled it off again.

Of course Saturday morning we had a breakfast furnished by the organizers of oatmeal pancakes and sausage. This alone makes the contest worth attending;

Yummers!

Add a little peanut butter and a steaming cup of coffee and it’s heaven in Parsons!

The cook was pretty uneventful, yet stressful since we were each cooking alone instead of as a team with twice as much to do. But we both got everything turned in on time, including our desserts. Kristi made a peanut butter cheescake with a candy bar topping and I made a combination German Chocolate and Turtle cake in a dutch oven.

This was the first time I’d tried this recipe, I should have used a skillet instead of the dutch oven and along with a couple other changes it will be a contest entry again.

Soon it was time for awards and Kristi started it off winning the dessert category with a perfect 180! Anyone that thinks you can’t make a winning dessert on a grill has never cooked on a Cookshack PG1000. My cake came in 5th, which wasn’t bad. In the meat categories, Greg earned 3 calls with 10th chicken, 9th ribs and 7th in brisket while Kristi got one call with a 7th place pork call. It was interesting to note that we hit the same table in all 5 categories; I took 3 of the 5 so that makes me the winner!

It wasn’t long after we started home that we started thinking of supper, so we plotted our course to take us through Independence. Except the GPS took us on a shortcut that bypassed Indy, so we started looking for something else. As we drove through Moline we caught sight of a sign for the Swinging Bridge Cafe so we circled the block and pulled in. The cafe is a part of the Crooked Creek Lodge and we thought the layout was a little strange, but we were hungry and they had food. And they had good food, and ice cream, and we were happy.

As we prepared to leave I had to stop in the bathroom, and then the layout made more sense;

it was an old nursing home that had been converted. I didn’t hit that call light, but did think about it! We continued on our way and made it home with only one close encounter with a deer.

The Parsons contest was the end of our season, a few of our stats: We cooked 13 contests and had a total of 18 category top 10s with one 1st place in ribs (which was a 180 score!) We had 3 top 10 overall finishes with 1 Grand Championship. We also had one first place win in beans and 2 first place wins in dessert.

So now it’s time to winterize the camper and start looking forward to next year. And practice. Because as I’ve said before, barbecuing and grilling are year around sports!